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Hell: Did Jesus Really Believe In It?

April 15, 2008 By Jeffrey Davis 3 Comments

Where did the doctrine of eternal punishment come from?

Did Jesus believe in or teach this?

Don Rogers has a WONDERFUL post about this doctrine at his place.

A sample of what you’ll find there is:

“We should bear a fact in mind. When the doctrine of endless punishment began to be taught in the Christian Church, it was not derived from the Scriptures, but from the heathen converts to Christianity, who accepted Christ, but who brought with them into their new church that doctrine which had for centuries been taught in heathen lands, but which neither Moses nor Christ accepted. And having received the idea from heathen tradition, it was natural that the early Christians should transfer it to the Bible, and seek to find it there.”

It’d be well worth your time to go read the rest at Don’s place.

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Filed Under: Spirituality
  • http://donrogers.org Don Rogers

    Thanks for sharing the link to my blog. My questioning of this heinous doctrine got me started on my journey of discovery about three years ago.

    Don Rogers’s last blog post..Hell?s Origin

  • http://www.spiritualliving.net/blog.html Rick

    Whether it’s hell, grace, Calvinism, etc any theology/doctrine based on sacred text(s), will always end in disagreement. Finding common ground with folks is helping my conversations dramatically. Not that I’m avoiding ‘the tough subjects’ it’s just that fanning the flame of Truth is more fruitful than trying to take away the teddy bear.

    Folks who know God, know there’s no hell…whether they’ll admit that to their orthodox friends…well…

  • http://citizenpolitician.blogspot.com/ Citizen Politician

    While I agree that is necessary to understand the origins of what is called the Christianity. The beliefs of these peoples were just that beliefs. All because a few other men decided to take these beliefs (all the while I would like to note-persecuted these ‘heathens’) and use them for political purposes does not negate the value to the cultures that believed, but molded Western culture today.

    Citizen Politician’s last blog post..Learn how to speak to Populist Party voters